Hi everyone. We have just finished a loop doing 5,400kms round trip. You'll need to forgive me as time is a bit scarce to finish all in one hit. The plan in brief is from Mount Pleasant in S.A. to Port Augusta, Kingoonya, Tarcoola, following the railway to Rawlinna W.A. Up the Connie Sue Hwy to Warburton, Surveyor Generals Corner up towards Docker River N.T. Around the big rocks, back track to Curtin Springs N.T. Straight South pass Mount Conner into the APY Lands in Sth Aust. Across to Marla and from there we leave the home trip unplanned.

Monday 9th of May. Leaving with 4 bikes and one support vehicle. The bikes are,
DRZ400E 2015 by Michael
XTZ660 1997 by Mark50
XTZ660 2011 by Pete
and myself riding 1988 3AJ.
The morning was cool and damp, a little bit breezy from the North West. With wet weather gear on we headed off around 8am aiming for Pine Hut Rd. Both fence lines on this road are made of dry stone walls making it very interesting and unique. weaving down into the narrow gorge and onto the flats where I had to see a customer of mine to pick up some money for the trip. The aim is to ride to Port Augusta using as many dirt roads as possible then towards a station called Cariewerloo West of Augusta then head North to meet up some people we know at Yudnapinna Station and staying the night there. The whole trip was planned around using dirt roads, back tracks, two wheeled tracks, station tracks etc, etc.

Some of us had previously done an exploratory ride just to see if it could be done. We did it easily to Cariewerloo and back to Pt. Augusta in the daylight.
As we rode further North the winds picked up and made our riding impossible.

As you can see on the DRZ fuel tank in the previous photo we are getting low..... After having a quick bite we head off towards Pt. Augusta. Along the way there are what I call "special Stages" which mix up the ride from time to time for rider and machine. One particular turn off was on top of a hill on which I stopped to give direction to the others. As the strong wind would have!!!!! "Blowing the socks off"

I thought to myself " Last time we did this we got to Wilmington no worries " " That bloody wind "
From there we rode gingerly to Morchard hoping there would be a place to refuel. But no. No fuel, no service. The support vehicle to the rescue, it was decided that they would drive to Orroroo to get 20 litres and come back. So there's a good hour gone just in waiting.

We only needed enough fuel to get to Wilmington then to Pt. Augusta where we can do the big refuelling.
From Wilmington it pretty well rain/drizzled all the way to Pt. Augusta, with the sun going down we booked into the Big 4 caravan park which we were lucky enough to get a free standing shelter. With that we stuck our tarps up to make some walls as a wind break.

The food was great and we slept well, ready for the next day event.

Last edited by Noely on Thu Dec 14, 2017 12:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Day 02, Tuesday May the 10th.
The morning was cold and fresh. Broken dark clouds dotted the sky line. The next fuel stop would be at Kingoonya which is approximately 600km away.
Heading out of Pt. Augusta at around 8am we turn left at the 11km mark towards Carriewerloo St. The road itself was dotted with water holes in the middle,,,,, to the left,,,,,, to the right of the road. At the 20km mark we come across a shearing shed on which the movie "Sunday too far away" was filmed.

The shearing shed called Carriewerloo woolshed (not a good photo but it is to the left)

Once we hit the dog leg we turn sharp right and head to Yudnapinna St.

From here the track starts to get into the damp clay road/track. This clay is the type that rolls on itself layer upon layer,

After going through some soft clay patches the clay was starting to build up and harden between the low guard and our tyres. This was causing the grinding down of the knobs on the front tyre. We were all having trouble with front wheels occasionally locking up. (DR exempt) After the third go on scraping out the mud we decided to take off the low guard just so we could make some progress in to getting to Yudnapinna.

Finally we get to Yudnapinna and catch up with James & Joanna who are the managers of the station. We got some bickies with a coffee and a mud map in hand we were on our way to find Siam St.

I did not get any GoPro footage of this day due to the battery playing up and the dash cam was consistently recording over previous footage. Heading off away from Yudnapinna the track went up into the hills towards Seven Mile Outstation. Passing that we weaved in and out of washed out creeks beds until we hit some sand and all was good from now on. With long straights we could sit on about 70-75kmh. Pete and I were out in front opening gates and waiting for the others.

We waited and we waited, I said to Pete "I think you better head back and see if they are still coming" so he headed off and did not come back for at least 15 minutes. Finally he comes, not good "There's been an accident"

Micheal virtually flipped the bike end for end. Mark50 was right behind him and saw the whole thing. From the way it was explained to me and how I interpret the situation, this is how it went down.

Last edited by Noely on Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Micheal was riding the DRZ (which is the bike that flipped) He had been riding along on the left side of the station two wheeled track. Sitting on about 70km/h he noticed he was heading the towards the centre, the front wheel gripped the hump and dug in, causing the handle bar and wheel to turn hard right. Mark50 saw that Micheal landed on his right side and then rolling down the track just like a barrel. Once things had settled down, bike picked up, asking him "Are you alright?????" they decided to have lunch and keep an eye on Micheal. Miraculously the DRZ came out unscathed apart from the rubber mount on the right hand side rear indicator which broke, nothing that can't be fixed with a bit of electrical tape. Micheal was in a lot of pain, his left thumb must of caught something on the way through or it may of slammed into the ground as he landed. His rib cage on the right side was very sore. Not knowing exactly where we were made it hard to determine how far it was to the Iron Knob/Kingoonya road if we needed medical help, so we pushed on. Micheal could ride but not very well, changing gears was excruciatingly difficult due to his left thumb. Just so happens that the station manager of Siam came along and said that the road is just another 10km's, "As you come to Siam, turn right passed the shed and then go pass the homestead heading South and you'll come to the T-junction"
Easy one!

Day 03, Wednesday, May the 11th. The morning was very over cast and cool.

Last night Micheal was talking about not continuing on with the ride but heading back home due to all the pain that he was still having. So it was decided once we had breakfast we would unpack the ute and load the DRZ on with all of Micheal's gear and Peter would drive him back to where his car and trailer were. (Mt. Pleasant) If there was a perfect time to get out this was the it. From here on it will only get more difficult to a get quick response for help if he were to come off again, the risk was too great for him to continue on and he was becoming a liability to whole trip. So with that decision they left around 10:30am, it would take an approximately 6hrs drive one way. We kind of hoped that Peter would have time to drop off everything and get back to us by around midnight/1am????? But it wasn't the case. Peter stayed at his house that night and left in the early morning of day 04, Thursday, May the 12th. By the time Peter got fuel, extra food he didn't arrive at the camp till 11am. So once we reconnected the ute with camper-trailer and everything else packed up it was close to 12:30.

I'm unable to find where they got the boiler but they have turned it into this.......

The plaque on the submarine.

From there we came across an intersection..

Waltumba Tank was installed in the late 1800s to provide a reliable water source during stock movements and for travellers through this remote area.
Commonly known as Waltumba Tank, this underground tank was designed to catch surface runoff after heavy rain.
A Government stock route tank, it was constructed in 1931 by P Penglaze to replace 12 corrugated iron tanks that collected water off a specially constructed roof.
In 2002 this tank was restored with funds from the State Government Premier's Community Fund.

A plaque...

A fully restored and working example of one of the original
catchment tanks (Waltumba or Sisters Tank) can be seen at
the turnoff. These tanks caught run off water from the
nearby road and stored it underground to prevent
evaporation, thus enabling the surrounding pastoral land
to be developed for sheep grazing.
Water was pumped from this tank using a hand pump
similar to the one installed now. This tank should not be
relied upon to provide water as it does not always have
water in it. Boil the water if you intend to use it for drinking
or cooking.
The track provides the only public access point to Lake
Gairdner. This 5500km² lake is one of three salt lakes
comprising the Lake Gairdner National Park. The lake
consists of a hard salt crust of varying thickness, with
approximately 315 islands up to 65km2 in size.
At the terminus of the track near the lake, a walking trail
has been developed to a lookout on a granite hill
overlooking the coastline providing stunning views of the
granite islands studded across the lake surface.

After all that we headed off again, towards Moonaree station.
It's getting to that time again to start looking for a camp. No creeks, no big trees for shelter, but wait! what's this,,,,, a little shed? Mmmmm.... looks good, shelter from the wind.

A nice little veranda to sleep under.

I gave the bike a service before we left but in my haste I think I pinched the oil ring, which I thought I had due to the amount of oil leaking since we had left home.

After collecting fire wood, making camp and setting our swags up it was time for a feed and a beer.

Last edited by Noely on Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.